Avon Selling Tips: Coronavirus Tips

Right now everyone is struggling to ensure their health & safety while balancing the ability to be financially stable. Whether you are a veteran Avon representative or have just joined Avon, trying to navigate this delicate balance and building your own Avon business can be overwhelming. “In times of crisis, when the news is full of shocking and ominous headlines, it’s important to keep calm and remember that there are still a lot of things that we can control and a lot of ways that we can make a difference.” (Davidson, 2020) Below are some tips & ideas that I have come up with or have found through my research that you can do to work your business when our choices are limited.

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Connect with Customers

One of the many benefits we get to enjoy as an Avon representative is the ability to connect with people and be able to bring happiness into their lives. I know for me, this is a big reason why I love my Avon business. Connecting with your customers is going to deepen your relationship with them which is only going to be a positive experience for your customer and yourself short and long term.

Maintain Business Routine

Routine is something that can provide comfort and security, especially during times of crisis. When all of this began, I made a vow that I was gonna do my best to continue my normal campaign routine as best as I could. For example, before we even heard of the Coronavirus, I had planned a Facebook Party for this past Sunday for my customer Facebook group. I still held the event and my customers all expressed appreciation for me doing so. It gave them a few hours to be entertained, save some money with their party orders and get a few goodies along the way.

What can you still do to provide your normal Avon services? For me I still had my brochures be mailed out through Campaign-Mailer, my campaign email updates & reminders were & will continue to be sent out as usual, as well as submitting my campaign orders for my rep delivery customers and delivering their orders.

Having any type of consistency in our lives will not only help our customers mental state & well being, but ourselves as well. Having something to look forward to, having at least one thing be the same in a time where things are changing overnight can do wonders in calming anxiety and boosting morale.

What Can You Do to Help?

I always express my appreciation to my customers for their support. They have helped provide a way for me to financially provide for my four boys and I have had, and most likely will continue to have, experiences & opportunities I otherwise wouldn’t have. For me, I feel that times like this is when I can really show my customers how much I do appreciate them.

I have a list of ideas and things that I want to do to help & provide to my customers during this time… things like giving sample packs of the Skin So Soft regimen samples that I all ready had on hand, doing live & previously filmed videos of makeup tutorials or even just checking in to see how everyone is doing, sending helpful tips & product guides via email or doing another Facebook Party. In Campaign 9, I will be giving each of my representative delivery customers, who places an order, a FREE Avon Senses Hand Soap. I will be sending out a survey to my customers asking them what they would like and then, next week, I will make a game plan based on the results.

Another thing you can consider is: “What can I do to help my community?” Reach out to your local homeless shelter or domestic violence shelter, nursing home, children’s hospital or cancer treatment facility… Ask them if there is anything you could donate? We have a variety of items that we can purchase on their behalf and/or make a donation of non Avon items. If they are not taking outside donations, offer to raise money and donate your chosen percentage of the proceeds to the organization. You don’t need to have a customer or another person looking to do a fundraiser, you can host one yourself!

Learn more about Avon fundraisers at Avon Fundraising.

Go to AvonNow and Avon U for all your fundraising training and materials.

Facebook Groups/Facebook Parties

Facebook Groups are a great way for you to connect more deeply with your customers. I personally have only 1 Facebook Group right now- Avon with Jen Antunes VIP‘s. Basically this group page is for customers who have actually purchased through me or through my online store where they can enjoy early access to updates (when possible), extra bonuses & special offers, ability to purchase products I have on hand and sometimes I will even post a game or a raffle.

At the beginning of the year, since I have a lot of customers that purchase makeup from me and I personally love makeup, so I wanted to create a “Beauty Club”. So over the next few weeks I am going to working on what this will be all about and launching it to my customers and to my social media pages.

For more tips on how to grow your business on Facebook, check out Tips on Growing Online Business with Social Media.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I hosted a “Mystery Host Facebook Party” last week through my customer Facebook group page. I had it planned for that day for over a month and it ended up being a much needed period of relaxation & fun for my customers. They had fun playing games and winning FREE Avon products, learned more about Avon and my business and one lucky guest received the “Host Discount”. It gave us all a few hours to not think about the world around us and loosen up a little. Plus, who doesn’t love to get free stuff lol.

Learn more about Facebook parties at Buy Avon Online: Host an Avon Facebook Party and Avon Facebook Party.

Share Your Journey

Right now, it’s very hard for us to feel connected and get a sense of community. Believe it or not, this is a human need. Of course, like everything else in life, there are some people who need more social interaction then others. For me, I am a big homebody and so are my children but even us “seasoned” homebodies do get stir crazy, cabin fever, lonely- whatever you want to call it. Think about what you are going through, your experiences of the Coronavirus, how you are coping… All of these can be topics that you can talk about in a blog, during a weekly video or even sharing pics of you and/or your family.

Customers want to feel a connection, even if they shop online. This is a great way to connect on a personal level with your customers, help them not feel alone in their fears or anxieties, maybe make them laugh with a silly picture of your child or funny story that happened to you as you were baking a new dessert. Do a question in your Stories asking people how they are doing or what they are doing to kill the time. There are ways you can connect more personally with your customers, even online.

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Focus on Your Online Business

Prior to the Coronavirus outbreak, Avon has been really encouraging it’s representatives to create their businesses online. Personally, I was all ready building my business online after a difficult pregnancy in 2016. But right now, no matter where your business is at, there is something you can work on.

Prepare for Attraction Marketing

Right now the biggest type of marketing that is taking the lead is called Attraction Marketing. According to Megha Parikh (2020), attraction marketing “involves giving value and offering free content to pull prospective leads into your company. The ‘attraction’ part of the equation is the important bit here – the idea is not to bang on about your merchandise or your company, but to grab people’s attention on an unconscious level so that they don’t really know they’ve been converted until they take action.” With the current events worldwide, pretty much every business is having to try new ways to reach their customers. People right now don’t want to hear another sales pitch. They are not gonna be interested in the constant “Buy Me, Buy Me”.

Though this may not give you immediate results, I will tell you it does work. Without realizing it, I’ve been doing this with this blog, Journey of an Avon Mom. I have written a variety of blog posts that provide my readers information on buying and selling Avon through product guides, how to’s, training, product reviews and more. I originally started to do these so that way when a customer, lead or down line representative had a question or wanted to learn more about a topic, I would have a blog ready to go. Of course this took me time to build an “arsenal of information”. Right now, you have the opportunity to at least get it started!

Email Marketing

With an online business, I believe that email marketing is just as important as social media marketing. The way I look at it is social media marketing allows me to connect with new customers and leads while my email marketing gives me a way to deepen that connection.

Each campaign I send my customers 3 types of emails- Update, Product Guide/Beauty Tip, Reminder. For my team, I send mass team emails of campaign updates and order reminders. But then I send personal emails if they need more personal follow up/reminders, celebrating an achievement/goal, recognizing them for their birthday & Avon anniversary and things like that.

Now, for all of this to work smoothly and not overwhelm me, I created a template for each type of email I send regularly through Mail Chimp. This is a website that helps you with your email marketing. I currently still use the FREE account choice and there are other choices for a small fee that provide you with more options and capabilities.

I am gonna be honest with you, setting all of this up took me a couple weeks, but once it’s set up, this is going to save you soooooooo much work and time. Additionally, it is going to give you a much more professional look, help you be able to collect contact information through landing pages and you can track to see who is opening and clicking on your emails.

If you all ready have an email marketing system set up, what can you do to improve it? Is there something you can do additionally for the next few weeks that your customers will like such as tutorials, beauty tips or quarantine life tips. How can you be of use to your customers?

Try Something New

For me I am actually excited that I will be able to have the time to establish and/or try out some new things I have been wanting to do. As I said earlier, I am going to be adding a new customer Facebook Group page. Another thing I will be working on something I have been wanting to do for a couple years but due to personal reasons, wasn’t able to focus on getting it up & running. I am super excited to start working on it and getting it launched FINALLY! Sorry… gonna keep this one hush hush.

So is there anything you’ve been wanting to do or were planning on doing? All businesses, big & small, right now are trying to figure out new marketing techniques because their old, tried & true are not working anymore. So why not try something different or new?

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Business Development Online

No matter what stage you are in your Avon business or how long you’ve been an Avon representative, there is absolutely no excuse right now for you to not be taking advantage of some business develop ment. I know prior to the Coronavirus, it was very hard for me to fit in any type of business development. I would RSVP or register for different training events, online and in person, but yet, I would struggle to attend them because something would come up or I wasn’t able to really focus on it with 4 boys running around my house. I know I’m not the only one in this boat. So what can you do to get some training done & learn more about Avon and your Avon business and how can you go about it?

Be Inspired

When I first started my Avon business almost 5 years ago, Avon U was not around. They did have a training module, but it was nothing like it is now. I personally did a lot of my own training through experience and being inspired by those who have come before me. I actually got a lot of ideas through top Avon representatives like Molly Stone Bibb, Theresa Paul and Milagros Garcia. When I had decided that I wanted to switch my business to be primarily online, I looked to Emily Seagren and Carla Lytle. These are all top Avon representatives in sales and leadership that each have a specialty area that I would drive inspiration from. Luckily for you, these three wonderful ladies still share their tips & ideas!

• Milagros Garcia: Events & Gift Baskets
• Carla Lytle: Social Media Marketing
• Theresa Paul: Fundraisers
• Emily Seagren: Blogs and Online Marketing
• Molly Stone Bibb: In Person/Local Community

With in each of their “specialties, they each share ideas & tips that have worked for them or that they have seen work with their own down line representatives in both sales & leadership (recruiting). Where do you go to get inspiration or new ideas?

Avon U & Avon Training

Us Avon representatives are very lucky with all the amazing training opportunities Avon provides us… for FREE! I’ve personally haven’t worked with any other direct selling companies but upon research and over hearing others stories I got that this is a rare among other direct selling companies.  So why are you not taking advantage of it, especially if you are a new representative or looking to learn to do something new?!?!

Once you register your AvonNow account after signing up, you will have access to Avon U training. There you will find a wide variety of modules, videos, guides and even activities for you to learn all about starting, building and managing your Avon business.

On top of all that, representatives can also enjoy even more training opportunities through Avon’s Learning & Development Team through Facebook Live, webinars and GoTo Meetings. Each training goes over different topics such as what the hottest products are, how you can help customers choose what is best for them, tips & tricks to help  you grow your Avon business and/or order size and so much more.

You can find what training opportunities there are coming up by clicking on the Business Calendar found on AvonNow.

Online Team Training

I know for the most part in this blog I spoke more about sales & customers. Majority of these tips could be used with your leads as well just so you know. But I do want to hit this one specific idea for us in leadership. We need to take this time to help out our downline representatives, especially those who are new. Imagine how you would feel if this was going on when you first started your Avon business. How scared/overwhelmed would you be? I know I was overwhelmed when I started and the economy was going good at the time.

So over the last few days I’ve been working on some things on how I can help my team. For me, 99% of my downline representatives are spread across the U.S.. Normally, I provide support to my downline through our team Facebook group page and campaign emails. Later on today they will be receiving an email with some ideas & tips that they can do for their business similar to this blog. Plus, just like my customers, I asked them to complete a quick survey so they can let me know how I can better help them through these next few weeks. I offered things like Live videos for trainings, power point presentations, emails, posts through our team page, Zoom meetings and I even gave them an option to put their own idea. Then next week, I will set up a game plan based on their results. Until then, they can work on the ideas & tips from my email.

If this is all too much for you I do highly recommend to at least continue to do your normal campaign team work. If you don’t have one, this is a great time to create one!

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Take Care of Yourself

I honestly feel this is the most important thing you can do for yourself and everyone around you who is depending on you. If you are not taking care of your own physical, mental & emotional well being then you will end up getting to a point when you won’t be able to do what you need to do to take care of your family and run your Avon business.

Self Reflect

As everything started unfolding last week, I really took a hard look at my life and my business and automatically decided that this is going to be a great time for me to work on what I can do to better balance my personal & work life.

With not having to be on a strict routine and the world basically being paused for the moment, this is a great time to reflect on your life. What do you wish was different? How can you get it to be different? What goals did you want to accomplish in 2020… do you even have any goals? If so, have you honestly made any progress towards those goals? Pick up those Kindles and start doing some self-help reading 🙂

Learn how to set & accomplish goals by checking out Goal Setting Success Tips for 2020.

Self Care

The biggest life lesson I learned the hard way last year is that we are not robots. WE HAVE TO TAKE TIME FOR OURSELVES. No matter what is going on or how busy you are, if you do not take time for your body & mind to relax and unwind, then eventually our bodies will make us and it won’t have a choice in the matter.

In a time where we really need to make sure we are in the best shape we can be health wise, self care has to be a priority into your routine. God forbid if something does happen to you or your love ones, then you want to make sure you are at your best to be able to fight it and/or take care of your love ones.

For some ideas on how you can get “Me Time”, check out some ideas on what I do at 10 Favorite Mommy Me Time Ideas.

Live & Let Live

I’ve always been a “positive, up beat” person. Well at least on the outside it looks like that. Don’t get me wrong, “faking it till you make it” can help sometimes but in a time where the whole world is on high alert, I don’t think that is gonna work. One thing I noticed over the last couple weeks is how quickly people were getting all worked up over what OTHER people were doing. That’s not good… For you, for your health and for your mental state. Think about it…

I want you to close your eyes and think about the last time you were mad or upset?

How did your body feel?

Now… think about the last time you were happy or having a good time…

How did your body feel then?

Notice how when you were mad or upset your body felt tense and heavy but when you were thinking about when you were happy or having a good time your body started feeling lighter and looser?

Negative energy is HEAVY… Positive energy is LIGHT. I don’t know about you but I prefer light over heavy. So how am I going to choose positivity. I am going to focus on what my boys & I are doing to ensure we are protected and hopefully not get it. And if one of us somehow does get it, I am going to continue to focus on what I can do to make sure no one else gets it.

I’m not saying that I we can’t ask how people are doing or even help others. What I am saying is we can’t control what other people are doing AND we can’t judge what they are doing! Remember, everyone has their own battles they are dealing with and do you really think your ranting on social media is going to stop others from doing what they want or need to do?

In Conclusion

I hope that these tips and ideas will help you continue to work and maybe even grow personally & professionally during the Coronavirus Quarantine, for however long it may be.

I want to emphasize to keep in mind to keep yourself safe as best as you can. Our federal and local governments have established guidelines & rules for us to follow so we can protect ourselves and our love ones as best we can. Follow the guidelines… not only for your customer’s protection, but for yours as well.

I wish you all the best over the next few months and beyond.

If you have tips or ideas on what you are doing to work/grow your Avon business share below in the comments… Thank You!

References

• Direct Sales Inspiration’s The Coronavirus & Your Direct Sales Business by Christine Tylee (2020)
• Entrepreneur’s 8 Tips to Coronavirus-Proof Your Business ASAP by Andrew Medal (March 20, 2020)
• Forbes’ Put Your Thinking Caps On: How to Sell During the Coronavirus Pandemic by Randy Illig (March 17, 2020)
• MDM’s Support Your Customers: Don’t Stop Selling Because of Coronavirus by John Gunderson (March 16, 2020)
• Small Biz Trends’ 4 Tips to Manage Sales During the Coronavirus Outbreak by Al Davidson (Last Updated March 17, 2020)

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